Everything that followed next was a bit of a blur. I remember Oliver’s palm at the small of my back steering me from handshake to handshake and photograph to photograph, where I’m sure my fears of looking like Bridge’s stoner cousin were starkly realised. Then he guided me to Judy’s surprisingly fancy sixteenth-century tithe barn for the wedding breakfast. And there Oliver sat beside me and did the heavy lifting in six identical conversations with other top-table guests that I hardly knew.
I even managed to start enjoying the food before I remembered that I was soon going to have to make a speech. And actually, I was okay with speeches. I made them fairly often as part of my job.
Except this was different because it was Bridge, it was Bridge’s special day, and she’d remember what I said to her on it for the rest of her life. So I’d worked hard. I’d worked really hard. Almost embarrassingly hard, in fact, because there was still a part of me that defaulted to the it’s-okay-I-got-a-D-because-didn’t-study excuse.
And, eventually, I’d got the speech to a state where I liked it.
Where it was all written out neatly on paper and everything because I thought scrolling through my phone at my best friend’s wedding would look bad, and now it was tucked away safely in my breast pocket.
In the breast pocket of the shirt I had spent the last seven hours sweating through. A fact that I only noticed when Tom got to the end of his own speech and said, “The maid of honour.”
I stood. The paper was…fine? A little bit wrinkly. Although I was regretting having made my notes with one of Oliver’s fancy fountain pens. It had felt very grown-up at the time, but biro would have stood up to the elements—well, the elements of my stressed-out body— way better. The speech was now mostly little rivulets of blue within which I could just about make out fragments of what I remembered as moving-slash-hilarious testimonies to my long friendship with Bridget. Except now they’d been reduced to “—nce we met at uni— ity” and “—vered in s—wbe—y b—mange.”
Bugger.
Taking a deep breath, I briefly flirted with the strategy of continuing to inhale until I had composed a new, even brillianter maid-of-honour speech from scratch, but my lungs gave out far too quickly.
“What…can I say about Bridget?” I asked a room full of glazed-faced guests, and then paused slightly too long in the vain hope one of them would tell me. “What…indeed,” I continued. For some reason, nobody was coming forward to help me out.
I felt a light pat on my arm and looked down to see Oliver looking up at me with an expression that, to my surprise, was far closer to saying You can do this than Why are you making a fool of me in public.
“I suppose…I can say…that she’s my best friend.” Brilliant start, Luc. Just keep doing facts, and you’ll be done before you know it.
“And, actually, that’s…sort of everything? She’s…the best. She’s always there for me, even when I’m not there for her. She’s good in a crisis, even though she thinks she isn’t. She’s kind and she’s generous and she sees the good in people, and I wish I could be more like her.” Fuck, was I tearing up? Bring it back with a joke. “I was going to tell an embarrassing story,” I tried, “but I realised it would sound like I was bitter about that one time she stole my boyfriend. Which would be particularly petty since she’s now marrying him.” I turned to the groom. “Tom…yeah, right call, mate.
You’ve got great taste.”
There. That was a conclusion. I sat down. And was just congratulating myself on a job well done, or at least a job not fucked up too terribly, when I remembered the job had a bit more to it. So, like Chumbawamba, I got back up again.
“Um,” I said. “I think I’m also supposed to thank a bunch of people, but as you might have noticed, I’ve kind of lost my notes which means I’ve forgotten who I’m supposed to be thanking and for what.” I briefly wondered-slash-hoped this was a wedding-themed anxiety dream. But, no, I was definitely here, definitely awake, definitely blowing my maid-of-honour speech. “Whoever you are,” I went on with wild optimism, “thank you very much. You’re great.” I very nearly sat down again when I realised I had to make a toast as well. “To Tom and Bridge. Who are also great.”
There was one of those silences you don’t ever want to hear during a speech.
“To Tom and Bridget,” said Oliver firmly. “Who are also great.”